


Genitive of Absence

by Mad_Maudlin



Category: SG1 - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode Related, Gen, Languages and Linguistics, Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the things he's been subjected to, Rodney deeply resents the Russian language,</p>
            </blockquote>





	Genitive of Absence

Of all the things he's been subjected to, Rodney deeply resents the Russian language, even more than sour cream or condescension. It's nothing but squirrelly consonants and odd-looking vowels, and just the idea of _case_ outrages him. He has a tutor/translator, a young person of indeterminate gender named Sasha who is impervious to sarcasm and perpetually cheerful, for particularly Slavic values of cheer.

"I have no intention of learning this auditory abortion you call a language," Rodney informed Sasha immediately upon their first meeting.

Sasha smiled at him. Sasha always smiles. "Not yet."

* * *

Rodney first heard about it from Markov, who always looks so sad to tell you anything, even if it's good news. This wasn't.

"We have received a message from Stargate Command," she said in English. "They are experiencing a problem with the stargate. They wish to know if we are able to dial out at all."

"Of course we are," Rodney told her, munching on a couple of lukewarm piroshkis he swiped from the cafeteria. All the food in Siberia is lukewarm, just like the air and water, as if entropy is running overtime in all this wilderness. "Theoretically, I mean. Because of course that dialing computer downstairs doesn't actually exist and all. Not that I'm tattling. Or that I blame you, seeing as it was Carter's suicidal recklessness that blew up your DHD. I wasn't involved in that," he added on the end, because hey, it always bore mention.

Markov frowned at him a little. "Dr. McKay, I'm afraid this is not the time for hasty decisions. We must find a way to dial our gate."

"What makes them think there's even a problem?"

* * *

The Russians call him McKay, or Dr. McKay, or occasionally, Rodney Phillipovich. He doesn't correct them, because hey, that is what Dr. McKay Senior had always called himself, and Meredith Meredithovich just sounds weird. Sasha says they are trying to show respect. Rodney thinks they could do that by not screwing up quite so often in the presence of high-energy materials.

He doesn't like the way his name sounds in their mouths anyway. They decline his first name like an adjective. For some reason, this disturbs him. _Eto laboratoria Rodnevo MakKeya, nashevo kanadskovo konsultanta, _he hears from the halls. Some things never quite change.

* * *

They tried for eight hours to make a wormhole connect, and when Chekov arrived to hear tell of their failures Rodney asked him, "Any word from Stargate Command?"

"Their situation has not changed," Chekov said gravely.

"I mean about _me,_" and he took it as a sign of growth, at the time, that he managed not to add _you vodka-addled homunculus._ "Have they sent any messages to me? Because while I'm really quite the Renaissance man, as well you know by now, wormhole physics is my actual field of concentration and if they're serious about trying to fix this"

"There has been no message for you," Chekov said, and walked away.

* * *

The Russians are not complete and total idiots, which cannot be said for most people, but they're not at all quick on the uptake and while most of them claim to speak English, none do it well. Rodney is utterly baffled by this, because how can they call themselves _scientists_ if they can so thoroughly mangle the international language of science? Are they just that chauvenistic? He even asked one of them, once, if he was just that arrogant or just that stupid, and when the man had looked away muttering about _glupiye amerikantsi_ Rodney had lit into his second-favorite topic of conversation around here, right after Naquadah Is Not A Toy, which was I'm A Goddamn Canadian, And Yes There Is A Difference.

He doesn't talk about those subjects anymore. One is now obvious and the other is basically irrelevant.

* * *

He tried, eventually, to contact the SGC personally, with a little equation he'd written to model the way the gate absorbed energy. It was only a small piece of brilliance, but it was deep into the night at the time and he had some vague idea that they could maybe drain the gate to get past critical, or hey, what if they sent an EMP back through the wormhole and cut the attack off at the source?

He sent the whole idea via e-mail to Major Carter, General Hammond, the president and anyone else whose name leapt to mind. He also, in spite of all time zones, attempted a phone call. If he wasn't sleeping, surely nobody else would be, either.

The phone wouldn't connect, and then Markov was shouting for him in the gate room, and there was no time.

* * *

He gets tripped up by names too, because everyone's got about five of themMisha and Mikhail Ignatevich and Dr. Belkin are all the same person and if he thought he had trouble with names in America, hooey, he's fucked now. And the names declineRodney thinks declension should be outlawedso sometimes when he's speaking English he gets tongue-tied and tried to talk about Dr. Galkin, Galkina, Galkinu, Galkinom. Everything in Russian has a gender except, apparently, Sasha, and Rodney is certain Jeannie would've had something to say about the politics of that. He will tell her, if he ever sees her again.

* * *

The phone would connect to Moscow, and Rodney ended up in a conference call with an assortment of important people who had the collective IQ of a bag of hammers. He stumbled along in broken Russian for a while, but nobody paid enough attention to him, except Sasha trying to helpfully stimulate his vocabulary. They were talking about contingency plans, they were talking about relief efforts, and finally Rodney stood up and started shouting at them.

"You people just don't get it, do you? I've been trying to tell you for six months and you still don'twe're talking about naqadah here, thirty tons of it, all about to break down at the atomic level! Ifor rather _when_the stargate blows, it's going to be a hundred times bigger than any nuke you idiots ever dreamed of. We're talking about continent-wide destruction, planet-wide repercussions! Does the phrase _end of the world_ mean anything to you?"

He would've gone on, but Sasha dragged him from the room and made him eat a candy bar. Eventually Markov came out, sad as ever. "They are still preparing for a large-scale relief effort," she said quietly.

"Relief to where?" Rodney asked. "Abydos? Chulak? Because I'm telling you now, shuffling people around on this planet isn't going to achieve anything in the long run."

"When the time comes," Markov said, "we will have Earth's only link to those other worlds. We must be prepared."

Rodney knew that; there was a reason he'd spent all night prepping generator prototypesbecause even he couldn't add up all the variables to explain what would happen next, and they'd need to keep the lights on, where lights were still intact. There was a tight, fluttery feeling in his chest that had nothing anything to do with his blood sugar when he asked, "Any word from the SGC? Anything?"

Markov shook her head. "Any direct communication would come through Colonel Chekov's office. He would be the first to know of something new."

"Of course," Rodney said, and swallowed.

* * *

The Cyrillic alphabet is a tool of the devil himself, and Rodney will say so to anyone who will listen, but he doesn't have much of a choice but to learn it. Sasha drills him patiently and gives him models to trace, but Sasha's handwriting looks like the bastard love child of Arabic and a seismograph, and Rodney refuses to imitate it. His own penmanship isn't much better, a stuttering mishmash of two alphabets whenever his mind outstrips his hand; sometimes he can't tell what language he's writing in until he sounds it out, and that worries himhe doesn't want to get used to this life. He wants to be able to go back home, or at least an approximation thereof, but more and more it feels like the Siberia cold is getting under his skin.

* * *

The world ended at eight o'clock in the evening, Siberian time. Rodney was tinkering with another generator prototype when Sasha quietly slipped into the lab, bulletproof smile gone. "Dr. McKay," Sasha said quietly, hands twisting together.

"Working," Rodney said.

"Rodney Phillipovich."

"Do you not understand the meaning of the word? Working. Busy. _Zanyat. _Go away."

"Rodney, we have lost contact with Stargate Command."

* * *

Rodney is Earth's foremost expert on wormhole physics, naqadah generators, and pretty much everything else. He is the only one left. He has colleagues, after a fashion, but they're miles behind him intellectually even if they can get caught up on the research. He has labs, equipment, funding, but only one real task to work on. He has the backing of the Russian Federation, who stepped in with their "relief efforts" while half of North America burned.

He has what he has, and he works with that, because Earth's last hope is buried under Siberian permafrost and it's his responsibility. Markov says, "We are lucky you were here and not there," and Rodney usually agrees with her, even though it makes him want to throw things. Lucky. Of course. It wasn't like there was anything he could have done, after all. They would've called him back if they needed him.

Irony of ironies, Teal'c came through the gate to report that the weapon was destroyed. "Too little, too late," Rodney said, but not _I should've left you in the buffer for all the good you did._ Teal'c asked about Stargate Command and Rodney walked away from him. He wasn'tisn'tgoing to get caught up in a conversation about what he can't change. He won't dwell on what he lost. He has more important things to do. _Menya zavut Rodnii MakKey. U menya nyet rodiny.  
_  
He got where he is now trying to clean up Carter's messes, after all, and it looks like he'll be on the job for a long time to come.


End file.
